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The Economist, a British magazine dealing with economics, has put out a report card for President Obama’s first term. I would like to give my thoughts on each grade and would hope if anybody actually reads this that they could offer up their own report card for all the categories.

The Economist/Me

Crisis response A-/C I lowered the grade to a C because although the auto bailout was necessary in my opinion they should have done more to reign in the UAW because much of the reason the companies were no longer competitive was due to labor costs.

Stimulus B+/C- I gave him a C- here because it did not deliver anything near what the president had said it would. Also so much of it was wasted on green energy pipe dreams that will never work without government funding.

Housing C+/C An enormous problem that will take years more to work through to see the housing market fully recover.

Labour C+/F I’m not sure what the guy writing this article was thinking but boosting college funding is not near a good enough reason to merit a passing grade when the nation is still at record high unemployment levels 4 years removed from the crisis.

Trade B-/B- I left the grade unchanged because I do feel the Obama administration has tried to help American companies export more goods. However, since the Obama administration has not fundamentally addressed the nation’s most critical economic failure, our trade policy, I could not give him an even higher grade as I originally wanted.

Industrial Policy F/F The Economist laid out the obvious reasons for the grade already.

Regulation D/F To me there is no question this has been of the administration’s most glaring failures. The fear that companies have of what Obamacare might mean in terms of new costly regulations is enough for most to give him an F here.

Debt Incomplete/F I thought hard here about giving the president a D because republicans have not been realistic about accepting at least some meagre tax hikes in exchange for entitlement reform, which will have to happen to solve the deficit problem. Unfortunately I couldn’t do that because of the president’s record-breaking trillion-dollar plus deficits for each year he has been in office. The bottom line is that the size of these yearly deficits and the accumulated debt overall has done more to endanger our country than anything in the history of this nation since World War II.

In the final analysis the Obama administration faced problems not seen since the Great Depression and should be graded with that in mind. Some of the things that many conservatives blast him for the most were needed like the auto bailouts and the stimulus, even though they were poorly executed, because the country was ready to plunge into the abyss. Unfortunately record high unemployment, out of control deficits, and the burden of Obamacare mean that this president does not deserve a passing grade in my opinion.

CBS has reported that Chief Justice Roberts originally sided with conservatives before ultimately changing sides to give the winning vote for Obamacare. The article mentioned that unlike most of the other judges on the court Roberts does follow media reports about the court. It has been theorized that even though he really did not find the law constitutional he decided to change his vote in an attempt to protect the Supreme Court’s image. Many wondered if the court’s reputation would not have been badly damaged in the eyes of liberals had they struck down the law. Of course, because of their decision in favor of Obamacare many conservatives now feel the court is out of control. What does seem pretty clear at this point is that for what ever reason Roberts decided in favor of Obamacare essentially saying to republicans that if you don’t like the law then you need to try to change it through congress and not the courts.

Healthcare in the United States certainly needs reform, and I am sure there may even be something positive in that regard in Obamacare. What that might be is not plainly obvious to me, but I do concede that there is at least a chance that maybe there is something in there that might help people, maybe. What I am absolutely sure about though are two reasons why the bill as a whole is a disaster for the country. First, we can’t afford it. Doesn’t anybody else see this, hello were broke. Our deficit for 2012 is roughly 1.3 trillion dollars, does anybody really think we can add to that. At some point investors (think China) are going to decide that American governmental debt is a bad investment, when that happens it’s game over.

Second, besides adding to our already obscene deficit this administration decided to push this legislation on a skeptical American public when our nation was at its weakest time economically since the Great Depression. When Americans were crying out for leaders to fix the economy this administration gave them Obamacare instead. The debate in congress on Obamacare originally took over a year, time that could have been better spent helping the economy. It was so divisive that now we get the chance to take even more time on trying to get rid of it instead of fixing the economy. Don’t get me wrong we do have to revisit the problem and try to fix it. It’s just that the country would have been better off if this president had never had anything to do with healthcare. Now instead of debating how to fix the economy during the presidential campaign we get to have a referendum on healthcare again, thanks Mr. president. It seems to me our time could have been better spent reforming tax laws, reaching a compromise on long-term entitlement spending, enforcing our trade agreements, you know doing the things that will make the economy more competitive to ensure all of our future livelihoods.